Phuket Market Update 2026: Tourism Revenue Holds Steady as New Supply Clusters in Bang Tao / Cherngtalay

C9 Hotelworks has put together a Q3 market update for Phuket. The update covers tourism, hotel supply, residences and infrastructure, with data as of September 2026.

Tourism revenue holds up better than passenger numbers

According to Airports of Thailand (AOT), Phuket International Airport handled 6.13 million passenger arrivals between January and September 2026, down 2% year-on-year. According to the Ministry of Tourism and Sports, tourism revenue for the same period was THB400 billion, down 1%. International passengers make up 62% of passenger arrivals, but international visitors bring in 92% of tourism revenue.

Russia is still the largest source market, with 703,200 passenger arrivals, down 6.2% year-on-year. China grew 12.9% to 501,000, the largest gain among the top 10 markets. Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany and South Korea all fell by between 7.8% and 11.5%.

Hotel pipeline is mostly branded

Phuket has 30 hotels with 5,517 keys in the pipeline. 85% of those keys are branded. 2027 is the largest opening year, with 2,192 keys due.

One location holds the largest share of supply

There are 45,027 residential units for sale across 403 developments. Condominiums make up 83% of them. Bang Tao / Cherngtalay has 17,388 units, or 39% of the total, followed by Rawai at 12% and Karon at 10%. Branded residences account for 4,953 units, or 11% of residential supply.

Half of all branded residences units are in Bang Tao / Cherngtalay, which also has 22% of the hotel pipeline. 39% of branded residences units complete in 2027 or later.

The draft Phuket Town Plan would raise height limits in red zones from 23 meters to between 45 and 60 meters, which is 15 to 20 storeys. These zones include parts of Cherngtalay, and the plan is expected in 2027. With more supply in one location, buyers will compare projects on positioning and product, not just on where they are.

Infrastructure arrives after the new supply

Phuket International Airport Phase II will raise capacity by 44%, from 12.5 million to 18 million passengers a year by 2030. The Kathu to Patong tunnel goes to Cabinet in December 2026, with completion planned for 2031.

There is also a draft accommodation law to replace the Hotel Act B.E. 2547. It would create license types for homestays, hostels and short-term rentals. Most new hotel keys and branded residences units are due between 2027 and 2029, before the new airport and road capacity is ready.

The C9 Sessions is back on Tuesday 3rd November at SAii Laguna Phuket. As high season starts, this is the afternoon for anyone who wants to know where Phuket’s luxury real estate and hotel markets are really heading. You’ll hear it from the people building, selling and investing in them, not from a brochure.

The afternoon opens with Siam Piwat on building residential, retail and tourism attractions at scale. After that, we unveil Phuket’s newest luxury destination with Minor Hotels and Gardens of Eden. Then come the questions that matter right now: who today’s luxury buyer is and what they want, how to turn market data into decisions, how wellness is reshaping residential design, and the five sales markets to watch in 2027.

There’s more. MRD launches a new platform for foreign investors. We look at new formats, from luxury tented villas to art-curated residences. A Khao Lak community shows how it built a destination economy from the ground up. We close with a legal briefing on Sap Ing Sith, a new property right in Thai law that every buyer and developer should understand.

Speakers come from Siam Piwat, Minor Hotels, List Sotheby’s International Realty, FazWaz, Montara Hospitality Group, Banyan Group Residences, MontAzure, Capstone Asset, Maitree Resort Development, Escape Nomade, Hughes Krupica and more.

Registration opens at 2:00 pm, sessions run from 3:00 to 5:45 pm, and networking drinks follow until 7:00 pm.It’s free to attend, but you need to register in advance. Seats go quickly, so don’t leave it too late.

The event is organized by C9 Hotelworks, with Mrs B Group and Delivering Asia.To view the program and register, CLICK

C9 Hotelworks has released the Niseko Tourism and Property Market Review 2026. Winter visitor arrivals rose 8.4% to 2.14 million, and hotel supply is set to grow 46% by the end of 2026. The review covers source markets, new North American air access, hotel performance, residential supply and the development pipeline through 2031.

The United States was Niseko’s largest international source market for overnight guests from April 2025 to March 2026. It sent 40,504 guests, up 15.2% year on year, ahead of Australia (37,134) and Hong Kong (37,039).

From December 2026, United Airlines from San Francisco and Air Canada from Vancouver will each fly three times a week into New Chitose Airport for the season. The airport is about two hours by road from Niseko. Starlux also adds five weekly flights from Taichung starting in October.

Winter Arrivals Rise 8.4% as Longer Stays Gain Share
Winter visitor arrivals across Kutchan, Niseko and Rankoshi reached 2.14 million in the November 2025 to March 2026 season. January was the busiest month with 630,200 arrivals.

Some 87.6% of international overnight guests stayed four nights or longer. The share staying eight nights or more rose from 21.7% to 24.5%, which supports demand for second homes and investment property.

Hotel Keys Grow 46% as Summer ADR Strengthens
Moxy Niseko Village (310 keys) and Hotel101 Niseko (482 keys) take hotel supply from 1,727 keys at the end of 2025 to 2,519 by the end of 2026. With 46% more keys, summer and shoulder season demand become more important.

ADR rose 10.6% in June and 15% in July 2026. Occupancy also grew again in July, mainly thanks to Japanese domestic travellers.

Residential Supply Reaches Its Highest Level Since 2018
Primary residential supply rose 27.6% to about 2,500 units in 2026. Condominiums make up 69%, land plots 23% and villas 8%. Hirafu and Outer Hirafu hold 63% of supply.

The pipeline includes 290 units across six Hotel Residences projects, including Aman Niseko, The Chedi Niseko and Hoshinoya Hütte Niseko. Fairmont Niseko is due to open in 2028.

C9 Hotelworks on Niseko
C9 Hotelworks has an extensive advisory portfolio in Niseko, covering hotels, branded residences and mixed use developments for developers, investors and operators.

To read and download C9 Hotelworks Niseko Tourism and Property Market Review 2026 CLICK

C9 Hotelworks has released the Japan Branded Residences Market Review 2026. Japan ranks sixth in Asia by market value at JPY487.1 billion (USD3 billion), from just 1,012 launched units.

The average unit price in Japan is JPY481.3 million (USD3 million), the second highest in Asia after the Maldives. Luxury tier projects make up 68% of developments, or 13 of 19 properties.

Resorts hold 91% of the country’s 1,917 units. Niseko alone has 57% of national supply (1,095 units), making it Asia’s most established alpine branded residences market. Tokyo is Japan’s only urban market, with 173 units.

At 40%, Japan’s share of standalone projects is more than double the Asia average of 19%. Almost half of supply (47%) is not yet launched, and new brands entering the market include Four Seasons Okinawa and Six Senses Myoko.

To read and download the report CLICK

C9 Hotelworks will bring its Asia Pacific market advisory work to Niseko on 28 September 2026, hosting a dedicated in-person session on the tourism, hotel and property trends shaping the region’s leading alpine luxury destination. The session, C9 Sessions Niseko, will be held at Hilton Niseko Village and reflects the firm’s ongoing focus on branded residences, resort real estate and hospitality market performance across Asia.

Bill Barnett, Managing Director of C9 Hotelworks, will open the session with a market update covering the direction of Niseko’s tourism, hotel and property sectors, drawing on the firm’s advisory work across branded residences and resort markets in Asia Pacific. Atsushi Nozao, Sales Manager for Japan at STR CoStar, follows with hotel performance data and trends across Greater Niseko. Wade Shealy, Founder and CEO of ThirdHome, and Giles Adams, Partner and President of ThirdHome, examine the rise of luxury vacation home exchange and shared access as a growing category in the destination. Miwa Urata, Manager of Global Sales and Branding at List Sotheby’s International Realty Japan, presents the changing profile of the international property buyer in Japan. David Johnson, Chief Executive Officer of Delivering Asia, closes the session with a review of strategies for reaching high-net-worth buyers across borders.

C9 Sessions is an ongoing initiative by C9 Hotelworks, one of Asia’s leading hospitality and real estate advisory firms, intended to educate the industry and promote informed decision-making around hotel, tourism and property markets across the region.

The session is an in-person event only, with no virtual attendance option. Attendance is complimentary. Advance registration is required.

Registration link CLICK

So you’ve signed a license agreement for a branded residences project with an international group. What do you do now?

That’s where the white space lies. For hotels, groups have pre-opening playbooks built over decades. Branded residences don’t have one. The agreement is signed, and the developer is largely on their own. That said, this is evolving as the sector matures.

Hotel groups are getting better at helping: brand immersion, loyalty connectivity, design support. But the developer still faces a fragmented space. Segmented buyers. Different legal regimes across borders. A constant hunt for the brand premium over the non-branded competitive set.
Let’s say it’s complicated.

I put this to David Johnson, CEO of Delivering Asia, a marketing advisory whose work spans multiple sectors, with branded residences a core specialty built on deep hands-on experience. His view: it’s marketing before sales.

“Narrative before product,” is how he puts it. Buyers decide on identity, trust, and place before they decide on price. Get that sequence right and sales follows. Get it backward, and no sales team can fix it. His playbook runs six words: Desire. Reputation. Placemaking. Collaborations. Brand. Product. Establish desire before anything else. Build a reputation that earns trust. Create a sense of place. Layer in the right collaborations. Activate the brand. Let product speak last, not first. A segmented buyer strategy beats one chasing undifferentiated “luxury buyers” every time, and sales alignment- the collateral, the CRM, the tools- come last, built on the same narrative as everything before it.

Marketing before sales is the next step in the journey.

Vietnam has overtaken every market in Asia to become the region’s largest branded residences market by value, at USD8 billion, ahead of Thailand (USD6.4 billion) and South Korea (USD5.8 billion), according to C9 Hotelworks latest research. The market represents 20% of Asia’s USD40 billion branded residences pipeline, which totaled 50,025 launched units in 2026, up 30.3% year-on-year.

The ranking marks a shift in stage, not scale. Vietnam trails Thailand on launched units, 12,592 against 13,124, but carries a larger total pipeline of 15,763 units across 47 projects, concentrated in the Upscale and Luxury tiers. The gap between total and launched supply points to a market still converting pipeline into delivered product. Thailand’s larger base of completed, operating projects reflects a longer-established branded residences sector with a deeper pool of end users. Vietnam’s higher value per launched unit, set against a smaller completed base, reflects earlier-stage investment demand rather than an established resale and rental market.

The trajectory has a precedent. China’s Reform and Opening Up, launched in 1978, and Vietnam’s Đổi Mới reforms, launched in 1986, both moved closed economies toward market-oriented systems through state-directed policy rather than gradual liberalization. In both cases, government investment in ports, highways, and energy grids preceded and enabled the arrival of foreign direct investment and manufacturing capacity, rather than following it.

Both governments also directed large-scale movement of rural labor into urban industrial hubs, and in China’s case, that urbanization pipeline became a primary driver of the property cycle that followed. Vietnam’s current infrastructure program, including Long Thanh International Airport and a planned Ha Noi to Ho Chi Minh City high-speed railway ahead of its 2027 APEC hosting year, follows the same sequencing.

Supply is concentrated accordingly. Da Nang leads Vietnam’s branded residences market by units (3,034), followed by Ho Chi Minh City (2,903), which is also home to the country’s first non-hospitality branded residences project, The Rivus by Elie Saab. Ha Noi is Vietnam’s largest urban market, predominantly Luxury tier. Of Vietnam’s 47 projects, 83% are co-located with a hotel, and 4% are standalone, a structure closer to Thailand’s hotel-anchored model than to a stabilized, developer-led residential market.

Whether Vietnam’s property cycle scales to the magnitude of China’s remains open. The policy and infrastructure sequencing driving it is not.

To read and download C9 Hotelworks Asia Branded Residences Market Review 2026 CLICK

Batam is rewriting its investment narrative. Long associated with budget weekend travel from Singapore, the island is now attracting global hotel brands and integrated mixed-use developments that are reshaping how buyers engage with the market. According to the Batam & Bintan Hotel Residences Market Review 2026, published by C9 Hotelworks, more than 90% of property sales in Batam are investment-oriented, with buyers driven primarily by rental income potential rather than owner-occupation.

The data underlines a market in structural transition. International visitor arrivals reached 1.61 million in 2025, up 22% year-on-year, while Foreign Direct Investment registered nearly USD 824 million in 2024 — a 38% increase over the prior year. Guaranteed rental yields ranging from 7% to 13% have become a key purchase driver, anchoring absorption rates for studio and one-bedroom configurations, which represent the most accessible price points at an average of approximately USD 2,100 per square meter of net sellable area.

Bintan tells a different story. Pre-pandemic price inflation created a supply-demand mismatch that several projects have yet to recover from. International visitor arrivals remain at approximately 38% of 2019 levels, with domestic visitors now comprising 76% of total tourism demand. Average occupancy across the island’s 24 star-rated hotels stood at 46% as of August 2025. Yet there are signals of a reset: new internationally branded hotels with design-led, select-service formats are gaining traction, pointing toward a possible repositioning of Bintan’s offer around experience rather than scale.

The C9 Hotelworks report argues that Batam and Bintan, though geographically proximate and sharing similar demand profiles, require fundamentally different development strategies to realize their respective potentials — one consolidating investment momentum, the other requiring structural reinvention.

For developers, investors, and operators tracking Indonesia’s hotel residences pipeline, the distinctions matter.

Download the full Batam & Bintan Hotel Residences Market Review 2026 from C9 Hotelworks to access complete market data, price analysis, and demand indicators for both destinations. CLICK